


cherry cough medicine

by Anonymous



Series: the state of dreaming [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, M/M, Superpowers, Unreliable Narrator, it's all really vague haha gotcha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:20:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21914335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: This one will take some time to take apart and tape back together.That’s what Jaemin thinks the first time he looks Lee Donghyuck in the eye and looks into his mind.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Lee Jeno, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Na Jaemin, Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin
Series: the state of dreaming [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1578400
Comments: 10
Kudos: 32
Collections: Anonymous





	cherry cough medicine

**Author's Note:**

> hi i am writing this as i sit here and wait for psycho to drop—this is more like a prologue to the ficlet i wrote some months ago than anything but alas

Jeno is good at heart, Jaemin knows that much at first glance. Really, really good.

He doesn’t have to read his mind to know that. Jaemin has always known that, and he hasn’t had to confirm it more than once or twice. It’s just a fact. And Jeno is smart too, far more than he looks, far more than others think, really, and Jaemin knows that Jeno is smart in ways that he himself is not. 

It’s a little ironic, if you ask Jaemin. 

_He’s_ the one that is supposed to know everything about everyone, and still, sometimes Jeno comes off as all-knowing, like a higher god that has reincarnated once, twice, forty-two times, all the epiphanies of lifetimes past and future etched into his soul and written under his skin, like he can read anyone like a book, although he _can’t_. 

Not like Jaemin can. 

Jaemin is the one that can look someone in the eye and know word for word what they’re thinking, and still Jeno can do something more _._ Jeno has _something_. Something about him that Jaemin thinks is almost unnerving. Something all-powerful in its simplicity, in its nature. 

Emotional intelligence, is it? Something like that. That’s what Renjun calls it, and Renjun always has the right word for things like this, if that says anything. 

_You know what they’re thinking, maybe, but you don’t know them, Jaemin. Not like Jeno does._

Renjun also thinks that Jaemin lacks it, so that’s something to note. Renjun thinks that Jaemin has the emotional intelligence of a brick wall. You usually throw stones at brick walls, right? That would be easier. Throw a stone at him. Talking is hard, but throwing stones isn’t. It’s not hard to throw a stone. Please throw a stone.

Maybe Jeno knows Jaemin more than Jaemin knows himself. Maybe that’s why Jeno doesn’t have to throw stones at him. Maybe it would be easier on Jaemin if he did.

Save that thought for later and chew on it slowly. Careful. It’s a little hard to swallow something so bitter, isn’t it? It’s good for you, though. Bitter things are always good for you. Something like cough medicine. The bitterness washes across your palate and the cherry red stains your lips. It doesn’t taste like cherry at all. It’s something, though, and it will make it all go away. It would be easier if Jaemin had a cough. Jaemin could pinch his nose and drink the cough medicine quickly, wash it down with lots of water, and this would all go away. Coughs usually fade after some days, a month at most if it’s stubborn. 

Maybe if it was something Jaemin could fix with his hands, he could learn to work through it. He’s good at that. Good with machines. Good at reading instructions and doing as shown. Computers would be simpler to work through, colored wire and plugs with plug-ins that match, not so complicated like reading someone’s thoughts and looking past the literal, trying to read in between the lines and connecting volatile emotions and concrete actions, bridging hazy abstracts to clean cut lines and sharp eyes. It makes Jaemin’s head hurt. He would rather work with a machine. Machines don’t have thoughts to read, only colored wires to differentiate and plugs with plug-ins that match. 

Nothing matches—not thoughts to words, not words to actions. 

This one will take some time to take apart and tape back together. 

That’s what Jaemin thinks the first time he looks Lee Donghyuck in the eye and looks into his mind. 

_Take a look at him, Jaemin. He’s something._

Jeno thinks that Donghyuck is worth looking into.

Jaemin hadn’t thought much of it. He does this all the time. It’s what he’s around for, after all. 

And he hadn’t though much of Donghyuck at the time. It’s cliched, how things like this start out, how unknowing we are of the start of the apocalypse. That’s what Donghyuck is to Jaemin. Something like the apocalypse. 

Donghyuck’s thoughts come echoing in his head like a storm raining down on shaky window panes, scratching at his walls and fighting for an out like a cornered animal. Donghyuck is thinking lots of things, and most of those things have something to do with killing them all and burning them to ashes.

Jaemin almost laughs a little at how straight up graphic some of Donghyuck’s thoughts are.

Lee Donghyuck is volatile. 

A ticking time bomb at most, Jaemin thinks as he looks down at the shaking boy, chained up and blood painting the side of his face red from a cut across his eyebrow.

Jeno looks back and forth from Jaemin to Donghyuck, eyes filled with a worry unlike his usual neutrality, curiosity under clouds of blue concern.

_What do you see?_

“What did you chain him up for?” Jaemin asks, not bothering to look across his shoulder at Jeno. A canine smile drags across his lips as he stares down at Donghyuck. And the look on his face pisses Donghyuck off, Jaemin knows that much, as Donghyuck’s mind clouds once again with rage-filled promises of a slow, painful killing. “What’s he going to do? Kill us?”

Donghyuck spits in his face.

And sometimes someone’s thoughts and actions match word for word, after all, connected like stars aligned in millennium-aged constellations.

Jaemin notes that. And he saves that thought for later, once he’s alone and has time to pick it apart.

_Looks like he’ll kill you the second he breaks from those chains._

“You don’t usually take in strays.” Or take them in by force, Jaemin should say. Jaemin cleans his face lazily, straightening after and crossing his arms. Not once do his eyes wander from the boy’s face, analyzing him slowly from the inside out. “This one looks like he's rogue.” 

Something about Donghyuck is contradictory. Something about the roundness of his eyes and the power that rolls off of him that fills Jeno’s head with a single thought. 

_Not anymore._

  
  
  



End file.
